Junius F. Wells

“ I thank God that we are permitted to live in a day and age of the world when He has not forgotten His people, and has demonstrated to them and to mankind as well, that they are in possession of the truth. If we were of the world the world would love its own; but we have come out of the world, therefore the world hate us. ”

“ All the strength, all the power, all the influence of the land, of the government, of Christian sentiment, of enlightenment, of civilization—all these ought to sustain us in maintaining our fidelity to that which our conscience teaches us is truth. ”

“ It is true that it is impossible for the Christian world to harmonize many of the doctrines that are growing in favor with them to-day with the holy Scriptures, and for that reason the Latter-day Saints mourn that their brethren and sisters of the world, though professing Christianity, should be averse to receiving the principles of Christianity as they were revealed by the Savior Himself. To-day with all the Christianity that prevails in the world where do you find men who are willing to receive the very first, the fundamental principles of the doctrine of Christ? ”

“ But let me tell you, my faith and belief and testimony is that the world has lost its opportunity to destroy that which is called "Mormonism;" that God's eternal truth, as received and practiced by the Latter-day Saints in these mountains, is rooted and grounded so deeply and firmly that it will never, while time and eternity lasts, be uprooted or destroyed. ”

“ What! the administration of angels in our day and age of the world? A greater absurdity could not be proposed. What! faith as the first principle of salvation? No, reason is the first principle of salvation in the day and age in which we live. But it is not so written in the doctrine of Christ. "Believe and thou shalt be saved" is the doctrine of the Savior. It is belief, it is faith, that underlies that knowledge which secures mankind an entrance into the Kingdom of God. ”

“ Brethren and sisters, I look to see the day when the refuge of lies shall be swept away, and we as a people, clothed upon with the power and favor of Almighty God, shall go forth in the world promulgating the principles of peace, preaching true holiness as it comes from the Eternal Father; and the honest, the pure, the upright among men shall lift up their hearts and rejoice, and shall say, Welcome, welcome, thrice welcome are those who come to us in the name of the Lord. ”

“ He knows that this people, gathered from the four quarters of the earth, have been brought out from Babylon through faith in Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, entering into holy and sacred covenants not to repeat them; a people gathered here for the purpose of honoring and serving God, and not for committing sin of any form, shape, or description. That is our character. The world, so far as they will judge us candidly, gives us the reputation for sobriety, temperance, industry, frugality, virtue; but still we are called the most immoral people that the sun ever shone upon. ”

“ We teach and have been taught that we must have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ: that we must believe in the words of truth that have been revealed from Him; that we must put our trust in God who has delivered His people in times that are past and gone; that we must rely upon His direction and walk in the path that He shall lead us in, fearing only Him, fearing not man who can destroy the body but fearing God who can destroy both body and soul. ”

“ We have the stability of commerce and society; we have the wealth; we have the population; we have every requisite qualification for self-government, and in the light of freedom I have yet to hear a reason assigned for withholding from us our rights. ”

“ God knows, our fellow men know, these hypocrites and liars who are misrepresenting us to the world know we are capable of self-government, and of instituting and preserving the securest and safest government, and the most economical of any people in this land. ”

“ The world has assumed to sit in judgment upon us for this belief. The world has assumed to say that we have done wrong in accepting these truths and living according to the law which God has revealed for our guidance and our government. Now, for one I do not believe that the judgment, in this respect, of the world will materially affect us in practicing and carrying out the purposes of Jehovah. Certainly it cannot change the truth. If Mormonism is truth the adverse criticism and judgment of mankind cannot materially affect its practice. ”

“ Those men who are abusing us and sending lies broadcast through the land concerning us know that I speak the truth. Of course the facilities are not so good to-day for them to enter our homes as they were before they showed the cloven hoof, before they proved themselves ravening wolves in sheeps' clothing, going about seeking whom they may devour. Their aim, purpose and ambition is to bring reproach upon this people; to see if they cannot in their insidious efforts introduce sin in the midst of our pure homes and society. ”

“ In our endeavor to keep the commandments of God, to practice them, to heed the teachings of angels sent from the throne of grace, to put away our sins, to live pure lives, holy and righteous in the sight of God and our fellow men, to enter into sacred places and administer the ordinances of everlasting life for ourselves and for our dead—in endeavoring to do these things we have incurred the displeasure of an unbelieving world, of those who have substituted something else as the first principles of life and salvation for those which were given 1800 years ago by the Savior of the world. ”

“ There are those who have been throwing dust in the eyes of the fifty millions who say so. But let me tell you how it can very readily be discovered whether we are wrong or not. We have petitioned, we have plead with the powers of this government to send among us a commission of honorable men to investigate the situation here, and to let all the world know what the great error and crime is that we are accused of. ”

“ I would have no courage to live and meet face to face any honorable man; I would slink and cower as a miserable lying hypocrite. So I consider those who deny "Mormonism." The homes of the "Mormon" people are homes constructed upon the principles of purity and virtue. ”

“ I know that is the prevailing condition among the Saints; I know that we are a pure people in the main. We have those among us who sin; we all have our imperfections and weaknesses; but God knows we are pure in our intentions and desires. ”

“ And they did so, and helped to form a government upon this land that God in His infinite mercy and wisdom had held in reserve for many ages for a people that would accord to his sons and daughters the right to worship and honor Him according to the light that was in them. We do not see, unless "there is something rotten in Denmark," why the American people should fear the independence of the "Mormons." I do not see why there should be any dread at giving us our equal rights—the. privilege to elect our officers and administer the laws according to the wisdom that is in us. ”

“ If we quail, if we vary one iota from that which we know to be true, we should be undeserving of support; but if we maintain our integrity in the opposition we may meet, God will not forsake us, and the better sentiment, the genuine and true civilization that is to be found in the world—for the world is full of truth, notwithstanding there are errors and wickedness alongside of it—will aid us in maintaining our integrity. ”

“ We want the government—if it is possible in all this land of enlightenment, among all these people that are offended at the immorality of the "Mormons"—to select a commission of men who are perfectly true to their marital relations, who are virtuous, and we challenge the commission of men to prove us an immoral people. Let them go into our homes and what will we show them there? We will show them respect of husbands for wives, wives for husbands, parents for children, children for parents and for each other. We will show them faith ”

“ For some cause the nation has received the idea that the "Mormons" are a wicked people. Their record disproves it. There has been a law passed which makes a crime of a principle of the Latter-day Saints' religion, but there is no people in this land who have so free a record in the criminal courts. ”

“ Can you answer who have passed laws to send men, whose lives are above reproach, into prison, and to scatter their families Can you who have passed such wicked laws answer if we prove that we are a moral people? ”

“ There is very little endeavor, I may here remark, on the part of those who seek to abuse, and misrepresent us and to bring down upon us evils—there is among them very little disposition to examine the principles that we profess and teach; there is very little disposition among them or desire to ascertain if these things are not true, or to find anything in the way of argument against that which we teach and practice before the world. ”

“ I love to be with our people in times when the wicked assail them, for I feel among them a sense of safety, a feeling of security, of contentment, of happiness that I do not believe can be realized to so great an extent among other people. ”

“ There is one thing and only one thing for us to do that I can see, and that is to maintain our fidelity, to be true to that which we know is true. We ought not to be threatened or put in jeopardy for that. ”

“ The nearest thing to a reason I have heard is that we are an unpopular people with the rest of the citizens of this country, and then the next reason is—and that which I really believe is deeply felt—the jealousy of the east with respect to the west—the feeling that the great commercial interests of the east should have greater representation in the halls of Congress than the sparsely-settled regions of the west. ”

“ They certainly cannot stand against that power which ever accompanies the promulgation of truth. Because of this Latter-day Saints have no fears of the future. We are dauntless in our advocacy of these principles because we know that they are true and must therefore prevail. ”

“ They forget that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, delighted in tracing His earthly lineage through the homes of polygamists. They have undertaken to destroy such homes. I feel in my heart sorry for the man who conceives that he has the power to succeed in such an unholy work. ”

“ They have in various ways manifested their evil disposition towards us, since the commencement of the Church and Kingdom of God upon the earth in this generation. Since the day that Joseph Smith received the revelations of God through the administration of angels from heaven, there has been a hue and cry raised against our people—an endeavor to blot out the work that the Saints have been engaged in. ”

“ They may say that we are independent. Well, I thank God for one that I trace my lineage back through a race of independent men, who had the courage over 200 years ago to stand up in the face of inimical laws against their religion and say, "My conscience is my own. ”